Page 21 of Travis
The reset. The unclenching, layer by layer, my system stepping back from the edge.
It started. My hands went still. My jaw released. The ribs found a frequency of pain I could handle.
The water was the same temperature it always was, and the light was the same blue, and the silence was the same silence.
But none of it felt the same.
She’d been in here an hour ago. I could feel that knowledge sitting in the pool with me, taking up space it had no right to. The image of her climbing out, water running off her shoulders, the towel pressed against skin that was flushed from the heat.
I told myself it was the mission. The adrenaline crash. The sensory system misfiring the way it did when I’d pushed too hard, crossing wires, registering signals that didn’t belong.
That was all this was. Wires crossing. Residual static. The physiological aftermath of a night that had gone from bad to worse to Sera Bolland in my kitchen holding a cup of chamomile tea that I didn’t know why I owned.
I sank lower until the water covered my shoulders, my neck. Let it hold the weight.
The pool had always brought me back to center.
Tonight, I couldn’t find it.
